Ever-virgin Mary

[CelticRebel]

I've seen the claim many times that there are thousands of denominations. There are actually only a handful of what I would call church "families", based on shared doctrines. I can name them, if anyone would like.

 

[ArmyMatt]

No so. There are individual local assemblies (the NT word), or churches, scattered all over the countryside where I live.

yes but the difference is that in the NT they were all in one belief. nowadays they are not. the most glaring are the various differences in how Protestants view the Eucharist.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I've seen the claim many times that there are thousands of denominations. There are actually only a handful of what I would call church "families", based on shared doctrines. I can name them, if anyone would like.

yeah, but the idea of "families" based on shared doctrines is also not something you see in Scripture or Church history for 1500+ years.

 

[GregConstantine]

"No so. There are individual local assemblies (the NT word), or churches, scattered all over the countryside where I live."

There are Orthodox churches scattered all over the countryside where you live?! Where do you live?!

 

[GregConstantine]

https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/how-many-christian-denominations-worldwide/


Regardless of how many denominations there are, even if there's only one, it is still in schism from the undivided Church.

Christ and the Church are the one and the same. As Christ cannot be divided, so the Church cannot be divided.

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

I've seen the claim many times that there are thousands of denominations. There are actually only a handful of what I would call church "families", based on shared doctrines. I can name them, if anyone would like.

Which is a nice idea, but has no basis in Apostolic Christianity. Even in the early, 1st Century Church, the writings of St. Ignatius, the disciple of St John, or St. Clement of Rome the disciple of St. Paul, clearly show that there were not families of churches, but rather one Church universal. Your concept of "churches" is just ahistorical and not what Christ and the Apostles intended. Indeed, if the Apostles were interested in "families" of churches with different doctrines, there would have been no reason to hold a council in Jerusalem in Acts 15.

 

[buzuxi02]

No offense taken.

Yes, in the NT, there were individual local assemblies of believers, called churches. There was no overarching hierarchical institution -- no Eastern Orthodox Church, no Roman Catholic Church. As you said, there was a church at Corinth, a church at Ephesus, and so on.

James sent people to Antioch, the local churches raised money to be sent to the elders in Jerusalem, the Church in Rome mediated conflict in Corinth. A priest can be recieved in another city through letters of recommendation.

Can a presbyterian bishop give a homily in an Amish church? Is a southern baptist urged to join the old catholics if its next door to him? Can an evangelical minister get a canonical release and assume the same ministry in a methodist church?

You make no sense because the church of Corinth and Thesalonika and Cyprus and Crete are all still there. The ruins of the churches of Ephesus and Smyrna are still there with their Bishop Chrysostomos being martyred in 1923, the descendants of those churches are still alive and they are all Orthodox.. You can actually buy an airplane ticket and visit these churches. They are all Orthodox. The street called Straight ( Acts 9:11 ) in Damascus still exists as does the very church Paul went to, its an Orthodox church . You can actually visit it. The place where John recieved the Revelation on the island of Patmos, that cave is an Orthodox chapel.

 

[dzheremi]

Again see the highlighted parts. I wish I knew how to quote parts of posts like you did.

To quote parts of posts you highlight them by left-clicking and dragging your mouse over the text you wish to quote, then releasing the mouse button. Then you go to the little quote bubble above the reply box that looks like this:

, press it, and that will wrap the text you have selected in "quote" tags.

Anyway, I am not advancing this view, I am simply stating what these different Churches hold. I actually agree with what you said about Rome.

With due respect, you did write in post #311 that the Anglicans "do hold to apostolic succession", and your later posts about how Rome would be shocked if I were to deny that the RCC does the same show that your view of what it must mean to "hold to apostolic succession" is very different than mine. Particularly in light of the fact that you recognize that the Church of England as it is today is not the ancient Church of the British isles.

It matters very little whether your see your ecclesiology as coming from Rome. Most Protestants would similarly deny having received such things from Rome, but the way that they discuss these matters, and the way that you approach them likewise, shows otherwise. You have noticed, I hope, the EO believers in this thread coming out against your invocation of the "branch theory" which is likewise foreign to the history of the faith prior to modern times (the Protestant reformation and its aftermath). This is not a coincidence. Ideas like the branch theory, or the idea that some group somewhere can maintain apostolic succession without maintaining the apostolic faith itself are outside of the bounds of traditional, historic Christianity. By whichever way heretics have been received into the Church throughout the ages (and it has varied, depending on the particular heresy), the fact that none were accepted as-is is a testament to the principle that there is something lacking/to be fulfilled in their un-Orthodox sacramental practice(s) tied to their erroneous faith, which can only be so fulfilled in concrete and real union with the Orthodox Church of God and accepting the one true faith preached and lived within it. Any other way of thinking (e.g., Rome's "episcopi vagantes" or similar, which is what it at least seems like your endorsing by claiming that the Anglicans are somehow an apostolic church) reveals a defective ecclesiology which attempts to split the Church. You may not recognize it as coming from Rome, but as Rome itself is the originator of such ideas, that kind of doesn't matter.

I am not contending that today's Anglican Church is the Celtic Church of old -- far from it. I was simply pointing out the fact that there was a church in the British Isles from apostolic times which was neither Roman nor Orthodox. The ancient Celtic Church gave a much more prominent place to women than either Rome or Orthodoxy did/does.

Of course the Church in the Isles was Orthodox. All churches were Orthodox until at some point them embraced false beliefs and practices that put them outside the bounds of Orthodoxy. Forgive me, but you seem to still be approaching Orthodoxy as some kind of denomination. That's incorrect. Orthodoxy is rather the true belief lived out in the Church that holds to that belief, against the heresies and pressures of those outside of it. It is the existence of these other bodies that are outside of it by virtue of the choices they have made (that's what the Greek word from which we get "heresy" means -- choice/choosing) that makes it look like just another in many options, but that is false. For as much as the existence or the predicted arrival of heresies is mentioned in the Bible itself (Matthew 24:24, etc.), we can know that there is a core belief from which each heresy deviated. That the other church bodies or whatever you want to call them insist that they have just as much historical basis as the Orthodox Church, or that it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, is just foolishness that confuses people like you and others who have to wade through all this stuff. That's why I'm glad you're here.

I don't know what the comment about the role of women has to do with anything. The Theotokos is a woman and she's the greatest of all. We call her in my church "The pride of the human race", and insist that she is exalted above the cherubim and the seraphim. We also hold the desert mothers like Amma Syncletica and the others in very high regard. Furthermore even modern examples like Tamav Irini (the abbotess of the convent of Abu Seifein in Old Cairo; d. 2006) affirm that women are inherently of the same spiritual worth as any man, and are not to be treated as lesser on account of their sex. So I don't know what you are getting at here. Seems irrelevant. Please explain.

 

[~Anastasia~]

No offense taken.

Yes, in the NT, there were individual local assemblies of believers, called churches. There was no overarching hierarchical institution -- no Eastern Orthodox Church, no Roman Catholic Church. As you said, there was a church at Corinth, a church at Ephesus, and so on.

The Churches mentioned in Scripture, local assemblies by city, are not the same as Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Church of God, Lutheran, Anglican, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, etc.

The Apostles visited and wrote letters to the various Churches, they were all under the same authority and shared the same doctrine during the time the New Testament was being written and for a while after.

Denominations now, as someone pointed out, share no authority, no ordination, nor even much of their doctrine sometimes, and are generally not in communion with one another. It's a completely different scenario from the early Church.

 

[Wryetui]

Denominations now, as someone pointed out, share no authority, no ordination, nor even much of their doctrine sometimes, and are generally not in communion with one another. It's a completely different scenario from the early Church.

Agreed, they are just "churches" that separated from the original One True Church, the Orthodox Church, and that led Christianity into chaos, they are just man-made "churches" following man-made doctrines and man-made interpretations of the Bible, everyone who interpreted the Bible one way made a "church", and then another one came an re-interpreted it to make another "church". Just see how much lasted Luther's reform until Calvin made it's own reform and so on until now, reforming the inreformable, why would you do that? When you have Christ's Church waiting right here...

 

[ArmyMatt]

something else to consider is the epistles were often written to either correct errors that had crept into those communities, or to encourage them for believing correctly. each one presupposes ONE belief that had been given. no one back then would have been fine with Ephesus believing in the Eucharist as the real presence (like a traditionalist Anglican), Corinth believing it is not and is merely a symbol (in the modern sense like a Pentecostal), and Rome believing it was if you thought it was (like strains of Calvinism).

 

[CelticRebel]

yeah, but the idea of "families" based on shared doctrines is also not something you see in Scripture or Church history for 1500+ years.

I wouldn't say that. There were differences even among the apostles. And then after the apostolic age, there were also differences. There were the Montanists, for example. Now I know the argument is that they weren't the church, but I couldn't say that. And I come back again to the ancient Celtic Church as another example.

 

[CelticRebel]

"No so. There are individual local assemblies (the NT word), or churches, scattered all over the countryside where I live."

There are Orthodox churches scattered all over the countryside where you live?! Where do you live?!

No, not Orthodox churches.

And that brings up something else I've been thinking about. If the Orthodox Church contends it is the only true church, why is it not much more evangelistic? Seems to me it would not want to leave without a witness vast areas of territory where there is not one Orthodox Church. And that's a sincere question, not a sarcastic one.

 

[CelticRebel]

To quote parts of posts you highlight them by left-clicking and dragging your mouse over the text you wish to quote, then releasing the mouse button. Then you go to the little quote bubble above the reply box that looks like this:

, press it, and that will wrap the text you have selected in "quote" tags.

With due respect, you did write in post #311 that the Anglicans "do hold to apostolic succession", and your later posts about how Rome would be shocked if I were to deny that the RCC does the same show that your view of what it must mean to "hold to apostolic succession" is very different than mine. Particularly in light of the fact that you recognize that the Church of England as it is today is not the ancient Church of the British isles.

It matters very little whether your see your ecclesiology as coming from Rome. Most Protestants would similarly deny having received such things from Rome, but the way that they discuss these matters, and the way that you approach them likewise, shows otherwise. You have noticed, I hope, the EO believers in this thread coming out against your invocation of the "branch theory" which is likewise foreign to the history of the faith prior to modern times (the Protestant reformation and its aftermath). This is not a coincidence. Ideas like the branch theory, or the idea that some group somewhere can maintain apostolic succession without maintaining the apostolic faith itself are outside of the bounds of traditional, historic Christianity. By whichever way heretics have been received into the Church throughout the ages (and it has varied, depending on the particular heresy), the fact that none were accepted as-is is a testament to the principle that there is something lacking/to be fulfilled in their un-Orthodox sacramental practice(s) tied to their erroneous faith, which can only be so fulfilled in concrete and real union with the Orthodox Church of God and accepting the one true faith preached and lived within it. Any other way of thinking (e.g., Rome's "episcopi vagantes" or similar, which is what it at least seems like your endorsing by claiming that the Anglicans are somehow an apostolic church) reveals a defective ecclesiology which attempts to split the Church. You may not recognize it as coming from Rome, but as Rome itself is the originator of such ideas, that kind of doesn't matter.

Of course the Church in the Isles was Orthodox. All churches were Orthodox until at some point them embraced false beliefs and practices that put them outside the bounds of Orthodoxy. Forgive me, but you seem to still be approaching Orthodoxy as some kind of denomination. That's incorrect. Orthodoxy is rather the true belief lived out in the Church that holds to that belief, against the heresies and pressures of those outside of it. It is the existence of these other bodies that are outside of it by virtue of the choices they have made (that's what the Greek word from which we get "heresy" means -- choice/choosing) that makes it look like just another in many options, but that is false. For as much as the existence or the predicted arrival of heresies is mentioned in the Bible itself (Matthew 24:24, etc.), we can know that there is a core belief from which each heresy deviated. That the other church bodies or whatever you want to call them insist that they have just as much historical basis as the Orthodox Church, or that it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, is just foolishness that confuses people like you and others who have to wade through all this stuff. That's why I'm glad you're here.

I don't know what the comment about the role of women has to do with anything. The Theotokos is a woman and she's the greatest of all. We call her in my church "The pride of the human race", and insist that she is exalted above the cherubim and the seraphim. We also hold the desert mothers like Amma Syncletica and the others in very high regard. Furthermore even modern examples like Tamav Irini (the abbotess of the convent of Abu Seifein in Old Cairo; d. 2006) affirm that women are inherently of the same spiritual worth as any man, and are not to be treated as lesser on account of their sex. So I don't know what you are getting at here. Seems irrelevant. Please explain.

No, no, I'm saying those churches believe they hold apostolic succession because they believe they can trace their bishops back to the apostles, just as the Orthodox claim they can. Now contrary to what you apparently think my belief is, here is what it actually is: Apostolic succession in the Catholic sense is not based on facts, simply because there were no bishops in the Catholic sense in the NT; 'bishop', 'presbyter', 'pastor', 'elder', 'overseer' were synonymous terms.

About the role of women: Women were given leadership roles in the ancient Celtic Church; in Catholicism and Orthodoxy they were/are not.

Well, I'm glad you're glad I'm here. I was beginning to think there were a few who were not, and I was/am willing to offer to leave, in order to avoid conflict and strife.

 

[CelticRebel]

The Churches mentioned in Scripture, local assemblies by city, are not the same as Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Church of God, Lutheran, Anglican, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, etc.

The Apostles visited and wrote letters to the various Churches, they were all under the same authority and shared the same doctrine during the time the New Testament was being written and for a while after.

Denominations now, as someone pointed out, share no authority, no ordination, nor even much of their doctrine sometimes, and are generally not in communion with one another. It's a completely different scenario from the early Church.

And many denominations think that doctrine is the doctrine they themselves hold, based on what they believe is their adherence to NT teaching.

 

[CelticRebel]

Agreed, they are just "churches" that separated from the original One True Church, the Orthodox Church, and that led Christianity into chaos, they are just man-made "churches" following man-made doctrines and man-made interpretations of the Bible, everyone who interpreted the Bible one way made a "church", and then another one came an re-interpreted it to make another "church". Just see how much lasted Luther's reform until Calvin made it's own reform and so on until now, reforming the inreformable, why would you do that? When you have Christ's Church waiting right here...

Frankly, I see man-made doctrines in the Orthodox Church, too. I see much less in Orthodoxy than most other places, but I do see it there.

 

[All4Christ]

CR - we are happy to have you here! We may need to agree to disagree sometimes but that doesn't mean that you aren't welcome! Glad to have you in the conversations.

 

[CelticRebel]

CR - we are happy to have you here! We may need to agree to disagree sometimes but that doesn't mean that you aren't welcome! Glad to have you in the conversations.

Thank you very much; I greatly appreciate that! I'm not sure everyone feels as you do, but I could be wrong.

 

[~Anastasia~]

And many denominations think that doctrine is the doctrine they themselves hold, based on what they believe is their adherence to NT teaching.

I'm aware of that. There are lots of denominations who believe they are "the same as the Apostles". As a matter of fact, I've never heard one advertise they were "new and improved".

But that's not my point. My point is that the Church was literally One. The Creed put together by the bishops declares "One, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."

Do you really think you could get the heads of the Catholic, various Baptist, Messianic, Presbyterian, Assemblies of God, Methodist, Church of Christ, Nazarene, Anglican, non-denominational, Lutheran, Episcopalian .... etc. etc. etc. ... to gather together and come up with an agreement of all doctrine, and call themselves "one Church"?

I'm sorry, but you can't even get the different "kinds" of Lutherans or different "kinds" of Baptists to agree on major issues.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Frankly, I see man-made doctrines in the Orthodox Church, too. I see much less in Orthodoxy than most other places, but I do see it there.

Might be worth exploring ...